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Electrification is one of the strategic directions of the BMW Group's corporate strategy NUMBER ONE> NEXT. The company announced that all brands and series will be able to become electrified via fully electric or plug-in hybrid drives in the future, which will be offered next to the option of internal combustion engines.

Further electrified models will appear on the market in years ahead of us and after 2020, the next generation of MINI vehicles will enable further and complete electrification.

The BMW Group announced that the new electrically powered MINI will be available in a three-door version of the basic model. This automobile will enter production in 2019, increasing the options of power-train drives for the MINI, hence including benzene and diesel engines, plug-in hybrids and vehicles than run on an electric battery. The MINI electric power-train will be manufactured in the BMW Group's E-mobility center at the Dingolfing and Landshut factories in Bavaria, before integrating into the Oxford factory, which is the main production site for the MINI three-door model.

Oliver Zipse, Member of the Board of Directors of BMW AG in charge of production, said that the BMW's flexible production system is innovative and is able to respond quickly to changing customer demand. He also mentioned that if needed, they can increase the production of engine components for the electric drive train quickly and efficiently, in line with the development of the market.

By 2025, BMW Group expects electrified vehicles to make between 15% and 25% of sales. However, factors such as regulations, incentives and battery charging infrastructure will play a major role in determining the size of the electrification from market to market. To respond quickly and conveniently to the demand of customers, the BMW Group has developed a unique flexible system for its entire global production network. In the future, the BMW Group's production system provides structures that enable various production plants to simultaneously build models that have an internal combustion engine drive, a plug-in hybrid or a fully electric drive unit.

The BMW Group currently produces electrified models in ten factories around the world. Since 2013, all important elements of the electric drive train for these vehicles come from the company's plants in Dingolfing and Landshut. Dingolfing, in addition, produces a plug-in hybrid version of the BMW 5 Series and BMW 7 Series, and will develop the BMW iNEXT in 2021. To date, BMW Group has invested over 100 million euros (around 434 million dirhams) in electro-mobility at the Dingolfing location, while the range of BMW Group's electric vehicles continues to expand.

The new, completely electric MINI is one of the series of electrified models that BMW and MINI brands will inaugurate in the years to come. In 2018, the BMW i8 Roadster will become the newest member of the BMW family. The completely electric BMW X3 has been announced for 2020 and BMW iNEXT should appear in 2021.

Today, the BMW Group offers the widest range of electrified vehicles among all world car manufacturers, with nine models already on the market. Models range from the all-electric BMW i3 to the latest electrified MINI Cooper S E Countryman ALL4, which is produced in the Netherlands at the VDL Nedcar plant. The company pledged to sell 100,000 electrified vehicles in 2017.

The BMW Group has benefited from its early start on its "road" to electrification. Indeed, the company's pioneering test of the electric automobile in a large scale began worldwide in 2008 with the MINI E model. The results obtained in this project played a key role in the development of the BMW i3 and BMW i8, the technology pioneers who have led to the current number of plug-in hybrid vehicles produced by the company.